Recycling bio-based plastics increasing sorting and recycled content (up cycling)
TOPIC ID: HORIZON-JU-CBE-2023-IA-0
Type of action; HORIZON-JU-IA HORIZON JU Innovation Actions
Deadline model; single-stage
Opening date; 26 April 2023
Deadline date: 20 September 2023 17:00:00 Brussels time
Expected Outcome:
In line with the objectives of the Circular Economy Action Plan, Plastics Strategy and Waste Framework Directive, successful proposals will make available effective recycling technologies for bio-based plastics. Successful proposals will also contribute to the Zero pollution action plan and the EU Bioeconomy Strategy.
Project results should contribute to the following expected outcomes:
- Improved circularity and resource efficiency via practical application of the circular (bio)economy concept in the bio-based plastics value chain
- Increased recycled content in new products from bio-based plastics
- Effective sorting and recycling schemes for bio-based plastic materials
- Significant improvement environmental performance across the value chain against specified fossil and/or bio-based benchmarks
- Social acceptance of circular bio-based solutions and products
Scope:
Bio-based plastic waste does not yet constitute a relevant amount of the total plastic waste (being only 1% in weight[1]), but due to their high weight in the political agenda it is easy to foresee that bio-based plastics will gain a relevant market share in the near future. However, there is a broad range of partially or fully bio-based plastic materials and products with different molecular structures and properties. If – performance wise – this broad range of materials available offers exciting opportunities to develop highly functional products, on the side of end-of-life considerations it represents a challenge. Some bio-based plastics are chemically equivalent to fossil-based ones and can follow the same recycling routes, others are only partially compatible with existing recycling processes, further others need the development of new processes. Some of them are biodegradable, others are compostable, others are neither of the two.
Besides the technical challenges related to the recycling process itself, scale is also a challenge. For some materials, such as PLA, recycling technologies are available when they are rather homogenous industrial waste streams; their implementation in post-consumer waste treatment is however hampered by bio-based being only a small fraction of the overall highly inhomogeneous plastic stream. Another challenge lies in establishing an efficient collection and sorting process. Plastic recycling is overall a challenge in Europe, with less than 14% of plastic consumption recycled domestically. Bio-based plastic is part of this picture, although still relatively a small fraction (1%) but with forecast of high growth. Labelling is not yet there to distinguish fossil-based from bio-based plastics, and the streams are collected together. A partial exception in this picture is biodegradable plastic which is labelled after EN 13432 or similar certification schemes indicating that such plastic is compostable in industrial composting plants or in home-composting reactors[2]. The expected end-of-life of compostable plastic is to be collected together with bio-waste and to be composted.
All these challenges require establishing collection and sorting strategies for bio-based plastics that are compatible with current waste management practices and recycling techniques that allow recycling bio-based plastics into new materials.
The scope of this topic focusses on the recycling of bio-based plastics which are not already recycled with the conventional (fossil-based) plastics (bio-based PET, for example, is recycled with fossil-based PET). This means that bio-based plastics made of ‘drop-ins’ polymers are excluded from the scope.
Topic Eligibility and Documents:
Kindly Apply: